ACC ~ Romans 8 v27

HE WHO SEARCHES THE HEART. ORIGEN: Paul shows here that God pays less attention to the words we use in prayer than he does to what is in our heart and mind. COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS.

KNOWS THE MIND OF THE SPIRIT. AMBROSIASTER: It is clear that the prayer of every spirit is known to God, from whom nothing is secret or hidden. How much more then should [the Father] know what the Holy Spirit, who is the same essence as himself, is saying? COMMENTARY ON PAUL’S EPISTLES.

ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD. CHRYSOSTOM: Paul is here describing the spiritual man who has the gift of prayer. He does not inform God as if God were ignorant but intercedes so that we may learn what it is that we should pray for and to ask God to give us things which are pleasing to him. … These prayers are heard, because the man who prays them is doing so “according to the will of God.” HOMILIES ON ROMANS 14.

SPIRIT AS GRACE. [PSEUDO-]CONSTANTIUS: It is a custom of holy Scripture to call grace “spirit.” So Paul in this passage calls the grace of the Holy Spirit “spirit,” which is dispensed and given to us in different ways, as the same apostle says to the Corinthians: “There are many gifts, but there is one Spirit.” THE HOLY LETTER OF ST. PAUL TO THE ROMANS.

PELAGIUS: Paul has called a gift of the Spirit “the Spirit.” … He makes us request with groans which cannot be described, just as God is said to tempt us in order to know, i.e., in order to make us know, what kind of people we are. Even in popular usage the master is said to accomplish what he orders to be done by others, as in statements like “he built a house” or “he wrote a book,” though he neither built nor wrote. PELAGIUS’S COMMENTARY ON ROMANS.

THEODORET OF CYR: “Spirit” here does not mean the substance of the Spirit but rather the grace which is given to believers. By this grace we are encouraged to struggle, we are inflamed to pray more earnestly, and with ineffable sighings we implore God the Savior. The holy apostle wrote this out of the experience of his own suffering. For he himself had asked to be set free from evils, not once or twice but three times, but he did not get what he asked for. Rather, he heard God say: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” But when he learned this, he willingly embraced the things which he had asked to be set free from and said: “I will all the more gladly boast of my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” INTERPRETATION OF THE LETTER TO THE ROMANS.

THE PROMPTING OF THE SPIRIT. PHILOXENUS OF MABBUG: You see that all the good promptings which bring us to repentance result from the activity of the Spirit, and pure prayer, which brings all these good promptings to completion, is also stirred up in our soul as the result of the Spirit’s activity. He too, in a hidden way, initially arouses us to groans at the memory of our sins. ON THE INDWELLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

CAESARIUS OF ARLES: By the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in silence, the shouting of the saints is heard in the presence of God. SERMON 97.2.